Waking up a Texas M151A2

[muttguru]

The "33505" you've offered at the end of the hood number is derived from where?

From my records. That number is the Manufacturer's Serial Number.... Ford's own vehicle ID number.
The engine is almost certainly the original to this vehicle, too.
ken

[m3a1]

Roger that, and thank you! Gonna visit the nice ladies at the DMV tomorrow and have them do a title search. Wish me luck!

[fergrn37]

Was going to ask that same question about the ser#

[m3a1]

They don't call him Muttguru for nuthin'!

[m3a1]

Search topic, "Fuel pump mystery fitting" for a thread related to this vehicle.

[m3a1]

Today is labor day and it's time to get those stubborn brake drums off!

Step one - clean the hubs with a wire wheel on a drill
Step two - scrape the stubborn rust off the hub
Step three - follow up with the wire wheel on the drill
Step four - spray with PB Blaster (I love that stuff)
Step five - apply moderate heat to the drum between the studs
Step six - wait for the POP! and watch the rust flakes fly
Step seven - shock the drum on it's circumference with the air hammer
Step eight - shock the drum between the studs by using a copper hammer as an anvil against the drum and let the air hammer do the swinging
Step nine - rotate the drum and blow out the debris
Step - ten - remove the drum like a pro

Life is good. Well, almost...because as they say...if you give a MUTT a cookie, it's gonna want a glass of milk....

But for a moment, it's back to brakes. Here's the culprit..




Brakes look pretty good and all the wheel cylinders are holding pressure. All this gets overhauled anyway but today I'm only dealing with brake drums and brake components inspection. The anchor for the spring that attaches the front shoe to the backing plate is missing. Grrr!


Temporary, elegant solution. We aren't ready to drive this yet so this will be fixed properly before that happens.


This little truck is hard to kill!



Took the junk wiper blades off today as I was taking a deep breath for jumping on the brake drum job. Naturally, I found that the blades I thought would fit...wouldn't.


So, back to the proverbial glass of milk. The brakes are up, and the cooling system just went down. Truly, there is balance in the universe. It's a mechanic's Zen thing, I think. Strike one thing off the to-do list and add another.

[m3a1]

Today was a host of little projects, some of which had nothing at all to do with the truck but, as per Rick's continual posts admonishing owners to adjust those pesky valves prior to troubleshooting other problems, I did just that. In all, it looked pretty good in there. I made a large adjustment to the valve closest to the firewall and all others only required minimal adjusting. Got some oil splatter and in wiping that up, I found a vacuum line from the distributor vent that was just a bit too large for the piping so I replaced that. I don't have much hope that it will make a big difference but I will have to wait for the RTV to dry before firing it back up tomorrow. Frankly, I think we're still going to be doing a carb swap.

[Horst]

why do you have the PCV valve capped?

[m3a1]

I was running the engine while I was checking the gap on the adjustments I had made so I felt it was a good idea to cap it. My truck runs as though it has a vacuum leak (only runs at full choke) which is also the purpose for the valve adjustment. Valve adjustments are Rick's opening salvo when tracking down and killing this particular kind of gremlin.

[m3a1]

Frankly, I think I've already proven the carb is the problem but just in case, I'm doing it Rick's way, (valve adjustment first) but to clarify, Rick did not specify capping that PCV. That was something I did on my own.

Adjustments to the idle mixture make no difference to the way the engine is running. I can run it all the way in or all the way out with no difference. In my mind, that means it's plugged up.... and any additional application of throttle nearly stalls the motor (because I have the choke almost completely closed just to keep it running) which means I'm getting good action at the accelerator but running extremely lean at idle. No dramas, I have a Brooks carb right here.

[m3a1]

Started the truck tonight and the problem persists.

[m3a1]

For your consideration, let's revisit some "before" pics of the A2 and see how far we've come.

Sitting under the carport, unloved, broken, and covered in dust.


The tub was filled with leaves and cast off bits and pieces of who-knows what.


Not even a piece of tape over the hole in the composite light...


Nothing says, "No one loves me," like having the canvas hanging in tatters.


No one had been behind the wheel in ages...and yet I had this feeling when I sat there....


Once the tub was cleaned out, I was pleased to find a reasonably solid floor!


Seeing all this, I began to worry about the possibility of critters having made their home in the truck.


Neglected....


But pretty much unmolested and pretty much all there!


And it ran....not well, but it RAN! Amazing.


And the seats were comfortable!


It takes a special kind of person to love this kind of look.


Or you have to be blind, or completely delusional..


But I've brought home worse!

[rickf]

I am just getting back from vacation so I am a bit late with this posting but say you blew out the brake drum??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You do realize the brakes on that thing are 30 plus years old possibly and as such are made of asbestos! Never, EVER, blow out brake drums with air. Wash them down with brake cleaner or water. And I didn't say to plug the PCV valve, that being open will not affect anything to any great amount. It is the same as when it is open to the crankcase.

[m3a1]

The point of plugging it was primarily so that nothing got in there that didn't belong in there and I had a plug readily at hand so she got plugged. I could have accomplished the same thing with a piece of tape. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and there are enough problems on this truck already to tempt fate.

Yep, asbestos and lungs don't mix, but this job was accomplished with the drums almost all the way on and little or no dust coming out. What was being blown out were chunky bits of rust which is the stuff that often gets in there and binds up a drum to the brake shoes, often making them a terrible job to remove whether the shoes can be backed off or not. I've been wrangling brakes a long, long time and had dust been present I would have gone to Plan B. In this circumstance, soap and water wouldn't have been feasible.

But, yes, it's generally a bad idea to raise a cloud of asbestos dust.

[m3a1]

So, I started out the day with an easy little job. I'd been at this hood and seen this dent so many times it was starting to get on my nerves.



So, out came the tools.


And the result...


In this way, no matter how the rest of the day went, I had at least one success.